Archive for June, 2018

When I was 12 years old I attended, for around a year, a Baptist Church. I was going with the family next-door because I was attracted to their daughter. I went to Sunday School in the early morning and then to the church service in the late morning—all in all, a dismal experience. I don’t remember much except for one Sunday school class. The teacher, a thin, wiry and intense man in his 30s or 40s, with jet black hair and severe glasses, told us boys that if the Russians ever invaded America and started going door-to-door to find out who was Christian, and we denied Jesus to them, we would go to hell. There would be no way of ever overcoming our denial. I can still see his face telling us this. He clearly delighted in what he was doing. And he looked lurid—the way I imagine a child molester does while violating someone. Essentially, that’s what he was doing—violating us. Even though I didn’t know if what he was telling us was true, I could feel that he was doing something horribly wrong. Technically, it was heresy—that is, not spiritually true. Today, that kind of guy is seeking great power. He needs to be resisted and called-out.

Answer: Actually, I’m working on it some more…I decided to take one last pass, a final read through before handing it off to my agent. It was a smart decision. I’m cleaning up some bad edits and improving the flow. No heavy lifting, though. It’s done in the sense that there’s no more creating to do. Just pruning. I’m also waiting to hear from some readers to whom I’ve given the manuscript. Street Song is not like any book I’ve ever read and I want to get a sense of how various types of people might respond. After my agent gets the book, I intend to start posting to my blog here with more regularity and in greater depth than I’ve been doing. I have some ideas that are more complex and detailed than what one can put on Facebook, and I want to get into them. By August at the latest.